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Australia is poised to take a lead in the move to free up the results of publicly-funded research, say international experts.

The comments follow the federal science minister's expression of support for making government-funded research freely available on the internet under a creative commons licence - one of the recommendations in the recently-released Cutler report on innovation.

"As a net importer of knowledge and ideas, Australia has everything to gain from the kind of 'global digital commons' outlined in the Cutler report," Senator Kim Carr told the Open Access and Research Conference in Brisbane this week by video link.

"The government is weighing these recommendations and will respond to them in an innovation policy white paper."

UK open access expert Dr Alma Swan is among a number of conference participants who welcome the minister's comments.

"I think it's important that the government has decided this is a major issue and that Australia is going to take the lead," says Swan, of scholarly communications consultancy Key Perspectives Ltd.

Swan says less than 20% of publicly-funded research is freely available.

One reason for this low level is that research is often published in academic journals, which have costly subscription rates, she says. These costs exclude those in less advantaged institutions and community-based health professionals from having access to the latest research in their field.

Medical scouts

Swan adds that the public are also increasingly wanting direct access to scientific research.

For example, people affected by medical conditions can be highly motivated to scout out useful information, says Swan.

She gives the example of US patient advocate, Sharon Terry, who is the mother of two children with an extremely rare genetic disease.

"Her family doctor knew nothing about it and couldn't help her," says Swan.

Terry was driven to find out what she could to get some kind of treatment and stimulate research to help her sons, she says.

But she found research referred to on the internet was inaccessible.

"Every time she went to get the paper she was up against the publisher's barrier and had to pay US$30 or something if she wanted to see it," says Swan.

Terry is now president of Genetic Alliance, an organisation that campaigns for open access to research.

Swan says access to public research should not be restricted because it might hurt a private industry, describing the copyright argument as "fallacious".

Instead, she suggests that researchers, their institutions or funders should be able to pay publishers for the publishing service they perform, while still retaining the right to freely share the research funded by the taxpayer.

Swan says a Creative Commons licence would help in this new arrangement.

John Wilbanks, executive director of the US-based Science Commons project of Creative Commons describes the Cutler report proposals as "unprecedented and visionary."

"If implemented it really gives Australia the chance to be first in the world," he says.

Commercialisation

Dutch open access researcher Frederika Welle Donker says a further constraint on open access to publicly-funded research comes from government researchers trying to commercialise their research.

But the federal science minister says this is a "failed" strategy

"If adopted, the [Cutler report's] recommendations will require a rethink of the push we've witnessed in recent years to have researchers commercialise their own discoveries," says Carr.

"To quote the OECD: 'commercialisation requires secrecy in the interests of appropriating the benefits of knowledge, whereas universities may play a stronger role in the economy by diffusing and divulging results'."